Richard Rodriguez

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For the ex member of the Children of God religious movement, see Ricky Rodriguez.

Richard Rodriguez (born 31 July 1944) is a Mexican-American writer who became famous for his 1981 book, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (ISBN 0-553-27293-4), a narrative about his development as a literate, American student.

1 Early life
2 Career
3 Political and social causes
4 Browning of America
5 External links

[edit] Early life

Rodriguez was born in San Francisco. A child of Mexican immigrants, Rodriguez spoke Spanish until he went to a Catholic school at age 6. As a youth in Sacramento, California, he delivered newspapers and worked as a gardener.

[edit] Career

Rodriguez received a B.A. from Stanford University, an M.A. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in English Renaissance literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and attended the Warburg Institute in London on a Fulbright fellowship.

A noted prose stylist, Rodriguez has worked as a teacher, journalist, and educational consultant, in addition to writing, lecturing and appearing frequently on the PBS program, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Rodriguez’s books include Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982), a collection of autobiographical essays; Mexico’s Children (1990); and Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father (1992), which was nominated for a National Book Award. In addition, he has been published in The American Scholar, Change, College English, Harper's Magazine, Mother Jones, Reader's Digest, and Time.

[edit] Political and social causes

A controversial writer, Rodriguez is most well-known for being a Chicano who speaks out against affirmative action and bilingual education, two projects often championed by his Chicano contemporaries. In short, his basis for his position on these two issues is that they are anti-assimilationist and alienating, being detrimental to American ethnic groups like Chicanos and African Americans. His story "Aria," from Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, examines this issue. Although "Hunger of Memory" traces the division Rodriguez felt from his parents through his education and assimilation, he ultimately supports the americanization effects of the U.S. education system. Rodriguez believes that minorities will benefit from mainstream education, just like Shakespeare's marginalized Caliban who Rodriguez references in the prologue in "Hunger of Memory."

[edit] Browning of America

The Browning of America is a phrase coined by Rodriguez to describe an increase in the mixing of cultural, racial, and ethnic identities in the United States during the late 20th and early 21st century. For Rodriquez the phrase has to do more with the color brown as a symbol of mélange in the United States or specifically an increase in its diversity. The phrase is commonly applied to the current demographic shift towards a higher proportion of minorites in the total population in the United States with no understanding of Rodriguez’s original meaning. It can be used neutrally as a name for the current demographic shift in the United States, but has also been appropriated by racist and nationalist groups on both the left and the right. The far right evokes the phrase as an image of a minority take over of the United States leading to the suppression of whites, while the far left hails it as an inevitable and desirable loss of power for whites.